New wet starts

[Andy B]

I always hated the rolling starts from behind the safety car as the standing start is such an integral part of F1 so it seems someone agreed with me!
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/128494/how-f1-new-wet-standing-starts-will-work.

[Scott]

    Added pressure for the race leader.  Do I care that a 20 -something old on a multi-million dollar salary has some added pressure to not screw up a standing start even if he is leading by merit?  Nope, not me.

[Steve A.]

Finally a sensible decision, at least as far as the fans are concerned. There may be a few worried drivers, especially Hamilton, his starts were poor at the end of the season if he has to cope with wet conditions as well it could make for some interesting races.

[Alianora La Canta]

As long as everyone is OK with waiting at least 10 minutes between the end of the Safety Car period and the restart (as that is the minimum gap permitted by the rules), for stragglers to catch back up to the pack and for most starts to be nullified since the track will usually be nearly dry by the time of restart (making the might-as-well-be-compulsory first-lap tyre change the important part, not the restart), then we should get a good spectacle.

(Edited to add: we may also get issues where the fact the time isn't counted as the race start gives us more problems with races running into the dark than we have already, as wet late afternoon races already gave us problems and the FIA still hadn't implemented its own recommendations for ensuring the 4-hour window finished on/before sunset before this was done).

[J.Clark]

I may be missing something, or trying to read too much into it, but I am not sure I have it right.

If they do a lap beyond the first lap behind the safety car, will they then come to a stop when track condition is acceptable, and conduct a standing start?

It also sounded like only one lap would be taken off of the race total while running behind the safety car.

[Scott]

As long as everyone is OK with waiting at least 10 minutes between the end of the Safety Car period and the restart (as that is the minimum gap permitted by the rules), for stragglers to catch back up to the pack

What?  10 minutes for what?  My understanding is that as soon as the race is called safe (as in when they don't have to tail the SC), they simply do an additional parade lap, come to a stop on the grid and like any other parade lap, as soon as the grid is full (usually only a matter of 10-20 seconds), then the lights will go out and the race (re) starts.  Surely they don't allow teams to come out and prep the cars again, which is the only thing that would take 10 minutes.

[Alianora La Canta]

As long as everyone is OK with waiting at least 10 minutes between the end of the Safety Car period and the restart (as that is the minimum gap permitted by the rules), for stragglers to catch back up to the pack

What?  10 minutes for what?  My understanding is that as soon as the race is called safe (as in when they don't have to tail the SC), they simply do an additional parade lap, come to a stop on the grid and like any other parade lap, as soon as the grid is full (usually only a matter of 10-20 seconds), then the lights will go out and the race (re) starts.  Surely they don't allow teams to come out and prep the cars again, which is the only thing that would take 10 minutes.

I had thought, on first reading of the Sporting Regulations, that Article 36.14 was included in the start procedure, because otherwise that article would no longer be accurate (starting behind the Safety Car is a variation on standard start procedure in itself, and there's no mention of that separate from situations where the weather is wet - which would by definition by Article 36.14 a) and a 10-minute restart loop). On re-reading, it is a classic FIA ambiguity (the situation with the Safety Car covers a scenario not listed in 36.14 at all, but it's been treated as a third exclusion situation since 1999), and will probably be elided... ...until it causes problems for somebody.

Also, I want to ask the FIA: is there some particular reason why there are 5 separate 2017 Sporting Regulations documents for F1, 2 of which were published in 2017? It does seem slightly excessive...

[cosworth151]

It sounds like a great improvement. As with all things involving the FIA, I'll wait & see how it really works.

[Irisado]

Potentially, it could be an improvement.  The article is rather ambiguous though.  I'm still not entirely following precisely how it's going to work.